Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Manufacturing backlash

McKinney police police corporal Eric Casebolt was placed on administrative leave this weekend after a video showed him
throwing a teenage girl, Dajerria Becton, to the ground and drawing his
weapon to chase other pool party attendees. Police said officers were
responding to a "disturbance" at a community pool in McKinney, Texas.

"I’m sure he didn’t know she was 14 at the time," Kelly said on
Monday night during "The Kelly File." "Maybe he did, we can’t assume it.
But now we know, and she looked like a young woman. It’s brutal."

"And now people have made this into a race thing. Are we there yet?" Kelly asked one of her guests, radio host Richard Fowler.

"Race aside, Megyn, I think to watch a woman being handled like that
by a guy who’s two times her size made me totally sick to my stomach,"
Fowler said.

He said that many of the teens likely ran from the cops because they
"are used to seeing police brutalizing young African-American men."
Fowler noted that Becton repeatedly asked for someone to call her
mother.

"The girl was no saint, either," Kelly responded. "He had told her to
leave, and she continued to linger. When the cop tells you to leave,
get out. I’m not defending his actions. Let me make that clear."

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 24% of
Likely U.S. Voters think white police officers shooting innocent black
people is a bigger problem in America today than blacks shooting each
other. Sixty-two percent (62%) believe black people shooting other
blacks is the bigger problem. Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure. (To
see survey question wording, click here.)

But 61% think the media instead overhype incidents in which blacks are
shot by white police officers. Twenty-eight percent (28%) disagree,
while 11% are undecided.

Sixty-three percent (63%) say media coverage is making it more dangerous
for police officers to do their jobs. Twenty-six percent (26%) don’t
believe this is true. Again, 11% aren’t sure.